1/ Research deep dive time! This week I analyzed the data for bitcoin accepting venues (ATMs, brick-and-mortar stores, services, restaurants etc.) 
2/ There are currently more than 13,000 bitcoin accepting venues worldwide. Out of the ones that were tagged with categories (roughly half of the total), the largest share of all venues is general shopping (35.1%) followed by ATMs (13.5%), and lodging (9.7%).
3/ Roughly 52% of the bitcoin-accepting venues started taking the cryptocurrency between 2013 to 2015. The most new venues were added in 2014 but then, following a slowdown, activity picked up again in 2017 and 2018. There is still interest to accept bitcoin as payment.
4/ A monthly breakdown of when new venues were added shows a clear correlation between bitcoin’s volatility and the number of venues that started accepting bitcoin in that particular month. If volatility in bear market is discounted, the correlation is even more striking.
5/ This likely indicates that as bitcoin’s price increases, more merchants will start accepting bitcoin as payment; perhaps because an increase in price indicates larger demand and therefore a higher likelihood that someone will actually pay with bitcoin.
6/ Looking at the geographical distribution, the United States is unsurprisingly leading by a wide margin with roughly 27% of all bitcoin-accepting venues. Brazil, Italy, Spain, Germany, and Canada are trailing with more than 4% each.
7/ It’s more telling, though, to weigh the results by population: The United States slides to the 21st place with 8.7 venues per one million people. The two leading countries in bitcoin-accepting merchants per capita are Slovenia (41.6 per million) and Czech Republic (32.6)
8/ If only cities are considered, Prague (my hometown!)has the highest absolute number of bitcoin-accepting venues and the third-highest density. The highest density is in the so-called “bitcoin city” Arnhem — a veritable hamlet in the Netherlands, with just 152,000 people.
9/ Even though the number of merchants is still low and not increasing quickly, the narrative of paying with bitcoin still hasn’t died off. Whenever there is a bull market with high volatility levels, the number of new merchants that start accepting bitcoin increases.
10/ It will be interesting to watch whether the emergence of Lightning Network can spark interest and make bitcoin desirable for payments again.
Read more in detail here: theblockcrypto.com/2018/11/29/buy…
